Mortgage Rates Down Again, 30-Yr FRM at Record 3.31%

By Michael Aneiro

A holiday-shortened week wasn’t enough to stop the downward dive of mortgage rates to previously unseen depths, as rates set new record lows for a second straight week.

Freddie Mac‘s (FMCC)latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released on a Wednesday this Thanksgiving week instead of the customary Thursday, shows the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.31% for the week ended Nov. 21, down from 3.34% a week ago, which itself had been an all-time low. Immediately prior to the Fed’s QE3 announcement in mid-September the rate stood at 3.55%, and at this time last year the 30-year FRM averaged 3.98%.

The average 15-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 2.63% from 2.65% a week ago, which again had been a record low. A year ago the 15-year FRM rate averaged 3.30%.

Amey Stone is Barron’s Income Investing blogger and Current Yield columnist. She was formerly a managing editor at CBS MoneyWatch, MSN Money and AOL DailyFinance. Her responsibilities included overseeing market coverage and personal finance topics. Prior to those roles, she was a senior writer at BusinessWeek where she authored the Street Wise column online and contributed to the magazine’s Inside Wall Street column. Topics covered included economics, corporate finance, Fed policy, municipal bonds, mutual funds and dividend investing. She co-authored King of Capital, a biography of Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill. She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.